Star Trek: TNG: Cold Equations II: Silent Weapons (22 page)

Worf and Dygan emerged from the bustle of activity filling the smoky rooftop and joined their shipmates. The first officer appeared agitated. “Sir,” he said, “Glinn Dygan and I have made a thorough analysis of the shooter’s escape.”

While Worf drew a breath, Dygan jumped in to continue. “During the firefight and then her escape into the service stairwells and elevator shafts, the shooter engaged in several bouts of hand-to-hand combat, against both Federation personnel and Gorn soldiers.”

“Piñiero served in Starfleet before she worked for President Bacco,” Worf said, reclaiming control of the briefing. “She was a highly trained officer, but nothing in her record suggests she is capable of besting a Gorn in hand-to-hand combat.”

Dygan cut in, “Even stranger, sir, she left behind no genetic material on her victims. Considering how much force she applied, she should have left traces of dermis and blood on each of the personnel she assaulted. However, one of the Gorn reported striking her with a bladed weapon. When we scanned it, we found trace particles of bioplast sheeting.”

The news drew a grim nod from La Forge, who looked at Šmrhová and explained, “The same material used to create the skin of Soong-type androids.”

As ever, Picard reacted to the worsening crisis with calm decisiveness. “If Ms. Piñiero
has
been replaced by an android, we need to prove that fact as quickly as possible—not only to clear her name, but to preserve the peace. Number One, share this with Data’s defense counsel, but make sure he understands this information is top secret. Geordi, I want you and Lieutenant Šmrhová to return to the
Enterprise
; keep looking for evidence to clear Mister Data. Doctor Crusher and I will stay here to direct the investigation and keep an eye on the president.” Picard’s already dour mood turned grave. “One last thing: do not share this information with the Gorn until we have a better understanding of their true role in this debacle.” He fixed his visage into a mask of hard resolve. “Work quickly, and exercise extreme caution. . . . Dismissed.”

•   •   •

Nanietta Bacco couldn’t stop herself from shaking, yet she felt numb, inside and out. Cloistered in her private suite, all she could think about was her friend’s inexplicable betrayal. Nothing had seemed amiss before the shooting started. Piñiero might have been a bit less talkative than usual, but that wasn’t uncommon when they were in social settings; whenever they were out and about, Piñiero had always been careful not to upstage her president. Before every meeting or event, she had entrusted to Bacco all her best talking points, all her best jokes, and—when necessary—a selection of scathing retorts to keep her critics in line.

So how did she end up pointing a phaser at me? What went wrong?

Her bitter ruminations were interrupted by the chiming of the visitor signal.

She wanted to shout
Go away!
but knew that wasn’t an option. Shirking the burdens of her office would be unpresidential. She tried to compose herself into a semblance of dignity as she called out, “Who is it?” The confrontational edge in her own voice startled her.

A man’s voice replied through the comm,
“Madam President? It’s Cort Enaren. May I come in?”
Did he sounded worried or condolent? It was hard for her to tell without seeing him.

Torn between an urge for isolation and a yearning to fill the sudden void in her life, she opted for the latter. “Come in, Cort.”

Heavy clacks and low hums resounded from the door as the protection agents outside unlocked it to admit Enaren. As the elderly Betazoid councillor entered, he was trailed closely by Agent Wexler, who no longer wore a jacket and had moved his sidearm holster from under his arm to his right hip. Stern and watchful, he kept his hand on his phaser and his eyes on Enaren.

“Steven,” Bacco scolded, “is that really necessary?”

Wexler continued to observe Enaren as he answered. “Yes, ma’am, it is. After what happened at the reception, I’m not taking any chances.”

She traded a look of quiet exasperation with her visitor. “Well, I certainly can’t fault him for being thorough.” Then she narrowed her eyes at Wexler. “Tell me, Steven: if you’re protecting me from Councillor Enaren, who’s to protect me from you?”

Her mocking question made the agent think. He lifted his free hand and spoke into his cuff. “Kistler, get in here.” His attention never wavered from Enaren—not even as the door opened and Alan Kistler, another agent from Bacco’s personal protection team, stepped inside.

Kistler was a few centimeters taller than Wexler but nearly two decades younger. His combination of Peruvian and Irish ancestry had given him fair skin and a thick head of wiry hair, handsomely cherubic features, and dark brown eyes. Like his fellow agent, he had doffed his suit jacket and now wore his phaser on his hip. In a glance he sized up the situation inside the room, then he looked to Wexler for direction. “Sir?”

“Alan, if I do anything that even remotely
looks
like a threat to the president or the councillor, shoot me.”

The second agent set his hand on his phaser. “Yes, sir.”

Bacco didn’t know whether to be amused, horrified, or reassured. Enaren drank in the moment with the aplomb of one who has grown too old to be shocked by life’s oddities, then he noted with a droll deadpan, “We seem cursed to live in interesting times, Madam President.”

“Don’t we always?” She led Enaren to a pair of facing armchairs and motioned for him to sit down as she did likewise. “What can I do for you, Councillor?”

He folded his hands on his lap. “Actually, I came to see how I could be of help to you.” More quietly, he continued, “I know how you feel right now, Madam President.”

“I appreciate your sympathy, Cort, but I doubt you could understand exactly what—”

“I wasn’t speaking figuratively, Madam President. I’m a Betazoid. I
know
how you feel.”

His explanation left Bacco feeling even more vulnerable than she had before his visit. “No offense, Cort, but that’s just creepy.”

He turned his palms outward. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to alarm you. Please believe me when I promise I’m not poking around inside your mind. Most of the time I shield myself from other people’s thoughts, as much out of respect for their privacy as for the sake of my own sanity. But the emotional storm you’ve got brewing . . . well, it’s too powerful to ignore.”

“I think that’s to be expected, don’t you?” To his credit, he didn’t respond right away. Apparently, his gifts enabled him to sense that she was merely pausing to compose herself. “Esperanza was more to me than my chief of staff, Cort. Even more than just a friend. I’d known her almost her entire life. . . . She was family, as close to me as my own flesh and blood.”

Enaren became briefly pensive. “Are you certain it was her in the arboretum?”

Something about the way he’d asked the question led her to wonder if he knew more about the situation than he was saying. “Who else would it have been?”

“Officers from the
Enterprise
found evidence in the arboretum to suggest that the shooter wasn’t really Esperanza, but an android replicant of her.”

She leaned forward, her attention fully engaged. “Why haven’t I heard about this?”

The white-haired Betazoid frowned. “I think they’re keeping certain details a secret while they continue their investigation. Possibly to prevent a panic, and maybe to avoid tipping off the enemy to the extent of their knowledge.”

His explanation sounded reasonable, but another question bothered her. “How did
you
find out about this?” Rather than answer, he looked at the floor. Bacco began to intuit the truth. “You’d left the arboretum by the time the science teams arrived, so you couldn’t have overheard Picard and his officers talking.” She hardened her gaze into an accusatory glare. “I thought you shielded yourself from other people’s thoughts—‘out of respect for their privacy.’”

“Most of the time, I do.” A sheepish smile and a small shrug. “In times of emergency or a direct threat to my president, I make exceptions.”

“I knew there was a reason I liked you.” Feeling a bit more relaxed, she leaned back and sank into her chair. “If that was an android masquerading as Esperanza, then she might still be alive somewhere, if we can find her soon enough.”

He was slow to mirror her optimism. “Yes, perhaps.”

“But you don’t think it’s likely. Do you?”

She could see him wrestling with his conscience, and she wondered whether he would think it better to lie for the sake of her morale, or to tell her the cold truth. The regret in his eyes telegraphed his decision. “I don’t think it’s likely, Madam President. In most cases of infiltration by impersonation, the doubled individual is eliminated to reduce the risk of detection.”

Despite knowing it had been coming, it had been a painful thing to hear. Bacco bit back on her surge of grief and nodded. “Thank you for telling me the truth, Cort. But until we find proof that she’s gone, I have to hang on to hope.”

In his green eyes she caught a faint glimmer of admiration, and he mustered a wan smile. “I would expect nothing less, Madam President.”

•   •   •

“We can’t know for certain that the attack was part of the Breen’s operation,” Azarog said. His head was the only part of him not submerged in the bubbling sludge of the Gorn suites’ warm mud bath. “Piñiero’s actions might have been a coincidence.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Sozzerozs paced and let the hot, arid climate inside his suite ease his aching muscles and rejuvenate his senses. “Events of this magnitude rarely occur by chance.”

Wazir
Togor perched atop an ersatz rock ledge and basked beside one of the suite’s primary heating elements. “What would the Breen gain from killing Szamra?”

Sozzerozs stopped pacing and looked down his snout at his adviser. “Now I know you’re being obtuse. You watched the same security recordings I did—she was aiming at Bacco. Szamra was collateral damage—and I would have been, too, if not for Bacco’s bodyguard.”

“You assume Piñiero was aiming at Bacco,” said Azarog, with barely half his snout sticking out of the mud. “Based on what I saw in those recordings, we could make a solid argument that she was aiming at you.”

Togor added quickly, “A fact we can turn to our advantage when talks resume.” He stretched his long sinewy body across the faux-rock slab. “Let me leverage a scandal like that, Majesty, and we’ll be able to wring any favor we want from the Federation.”

Azarog sat up out of the mud, which clung to him like a new hide. “We’re not supposed to gain the upper hand, just keep them at the table. Using this incident to force them into concessions might jeopardize our primary mission by bringing the summit to a close.”

The imperator resumed his languid trudging back and forth between Azarog and Togor. “I have begun to doubt the value of our so-called mission. I agreed to waylay the Federation president and play the part of a distraction. I did
not
agree to act as live bait for an assassin.” He stopped midway between the
wazir
and the
zulta-osol.
“There is much the Breen aren’t telling us. If that really was Bacco’s chief of staff who went on that rampage, how did Thot Tran and his Spetzkar induce her to violence? If it was an impostor, how did they substitute her for the real Piñiero without being detected? And what if she had succeeded? What if she had killed Bacco and me before that bodyguard shot her and forced her to retreat?”

Uneasy looks traveled between Togor and Azarog. The
zulta-osol
asked, “Was that a rhetorical question, my lord?”

“It was not. Had the assassin succeeded, what do you think would have been the result?”

Togor rose to the challenge. “The crew of the
Hastur-zolis
would have interpreted your murder as an act of war and opened fire on the two Starfleet vessels.”

“Who would have overpowered it,” Sozzerozs pointed out.

Azarog added, “Giving your son no choice but to name himself imperator and declare war on the Federation.” He let out a long, low hiss. “Which would be most calamitous.”

“In less than a day,” Sozzerozs said, “our reserve forces in the adjacent sectors would attack all Federation targets within range. Based on wargame scenarios I have reviewed with our fleet commanders, the response from the Federation and the Klingon Empire would be swift and decisive. And under the terms of our mutual defense treaties with the other members of the Pact, the entire quadrant would be plunged into war in a matter of weeks.”

It was a chilling prospect, and it left the three of them hushed for a moment. When Togor broke the silence, he sounded baffled. “Why would the Breen risk that? Just as important, why would they risk
your
life, Majesty?”

“Forget about bullying the Federation,” Azarog said. “We should use this to force favors from the Breen. We honored our pledge to aid them in matters of mutual defense, and they have repaid us with treachery.”

“We don’t
know
that,” Togor warned. “We only
suspect
it. Unless we find evidence that proves this to be the work of the Breen, we can’t risk alienating them with baseless accusations.” He looked at Sozzerozs. “We can further both our agendas by directing your Imperial Guard to cooperate with Starfleet, by helping it investigate the attack. By presenting ourselves to the Federation as partners in the pursuit of justice, we can gain access to their findings about the incident. If they find evidence that implicates the Breen, they will have reason to share it, because doing so will exonerate them of responsibility. And that evidence will enable us to confront Thot Tran, and make him pay for his betrayal.”

Azarog was skeptical. “And if the investigation finds no such evidence?”

“Then at least we will have prolonged our interaction with the Federation delegation, thereby accomplishing our original mission of attracting the attention of their government, military, and intelligence agencies.” He lifted his snout with a hint of pride as he looked at Sozzerozs. “Honor will be served—and justice will be given its chance, as well.”